Thursday, 28 February 2013

For an ordinary person that astronomical amount of money is almost impossible to fathom. But there it is: That is how much Angela Merkel's "green" energy transition policy - getting rid of nuclear power and installing subsidized wind and solar power - will cost the German taxpayers. And note that cost estimate is not coming from some shady "dirty energy" lobby organization - it is Angela Merkel's own environment minister Peter Altmeier, who disclosed the sum in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.Several German research institutes have arrived at costs close the one Altmaier mentioned.The Rheinisch-Westfälische Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI) estimates that alone the subsidies for the solar panels installed before the end of 2012 will cost the taxpayers 108 billion euro ($142 billion). And as Georg Erdmann, the director of the energy systems department at the Berlin Technical University reminds us, "the energy transition policy was agreed on the assumption that it will not cost anything". All this in the name of fighting nonexistent human caused global warming.So far the results have been rather modest, to say the least: Last year German CO2 emissions rose by 2% as a result of more coal burning and gas use, according to Germany's Federal Environment Agency (UBA).PSThis is what German taxpayers get for the huge solar power subsidies:As is so often the case in winter, all solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity at the same time. To avert power shortages, Germany currently has to import large amounts of electricity generated at nuclear power plants in France and the Czech Republic.To offset the temporary loss of solar power, grid operator Tennet resorted to an emergency backup plan, powering up an old oil-fired plant in the Austrian city of Graz.(iimage by Wikipedia)